eza

eza is a modern, feature-rich replacement for the ls command. It is written in Rust and serves as a maintained fork of the original exa command.

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1. Quick Comparison with ls

Feature	ls	eza
Written in	C	Rust
Color Support	Basic / Manual	Rich, context-aware colors by default
Icons	❌ No	✅ Yes (--icons)
Git Integration	❌ No	✅ Yes (--git)
Tree View	❌ No (requires tree)	✅ Yes (--tree)
Hyperlinks	❌ No	✅ Yes (--hyperlink)

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2. Basic Usage & Common Aliases

To fully replace ls, many users set up aliases in their .bashrc or .zshrc.

# Basic replacement
alias ls="eza --icons=auto"

# Detailed list view (long format)
alias ll="eza -la --icons=auto --group-directories-first"

# Grid view
alias lg="eza -G --icons=auto"

# Tree view
alias lt="eza --tree --level=2 --icons=auto"

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3. Core Display Modes

eza provides different layout views for listing files.

Mode	Short Option	Long Option	Description
Grid (Default)	-G	--grid	Displays entries as a multi-column grid sorted downwards.
Across	-x	--across	Displays entries as a grid sorted horizontally.
One-line	-1	--oneline	Displays one entry per line (useful for scripting).
Long View	-l	--long	Displays extended details (permissions, size, owner, date).
Tree	-T	--tree	Recursively displays files in a tree-like hierarchy.

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4. Filtering and Sorting

Customize which files are displayed and how they are ordered.

Action	Option	Description
Show All	-a, --all	Show hidden and dotfiles. Pass twice (-aa) to also show . and ...
Directories Only	-D, --only-dirs	List only directories.
Files Only	-f, --only-files	List only files.
List Directory Entry	-d, --treat-dirs-as-files	Treat directories as regular files, listing the entry itself rather than its contents.
Group Directories First	--group-directories-first	Show directories at the top of the list.
Reverse Order	-r, --reverse	Reverses the sorting order.
Ignore Git Files	--git-ignore	Skip files specified in .gitignore.
Custom Ignore Glob	-I, --ignore-glob="<glob>"	Exclude files matching glob patterns (pipe-separated).

Sorting by Field (-s / --sort)

Sort files by specific attributes:

• name (default), Extension, extension
• size, type, inode
• modified (or date, time), accessed, created
• none (no sorting)

# Sort by file size, largest first
eza -lh -s size -r

# Group directories first, and sort by file extension
eza -l --group-directories-first -s extension

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5. Long View Details (-l)

When using the long view (-l), you can toggle additional metadata columns and format them.

Column Customization

Column / Feature	Option	Description
Header Row	-h, --header	Adds a header row labeling the columns.
Octal Permissions	-o, --octal-permissions	Shows permissions in both symbolic and octal formats (e.g., 755).
Git Status	--git	Displays Git status for each file (M modified, A added, etc.).
Git Repo Status	--git-repos	Displays high-level Git status for directories.
Byte Sizes	-B, --bytes	List file sizes in bytes, without formatting prefixes.
Binary Units	-b, --binary	Lists file sizes with binary units (KiB, MiB, etc.).
Mount Points	-M, --mounts	Shows mount point details (Linux/macOS only).
Inode Numbers	-i, --inode	Lists each file's inode number.
Hard Links	-H, --links	Lists the number of hard links.
Security Context	-Z, --context	Lists security context details (e.g., SELinux contexts).

Timestamp & Size Customization

Action	Option	Description
Choose Time Field	-t <field> / --time=<field>	Select modified (default), accessed, created, or changed.
Show Total Size	--total-size	Recursively calculates and shows folder sizes (Linux/macOS).
Format Timestamps	--time-style=<style>	Format using default, iso, long-iso, full-iso, relative, or custom +<FORMAT> (chrono syntax).

# Long view with git status, headers, and octal permissions
eza -lh --git -o

# Show folder contents with relative time (e.g., "3m ago")
eza -lh --time-style=relative

# Show the actual physical block sizes on the filesystem
eza -lh -S

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6. Icons & Aesthetic Enhancements

eza provides visual upgrades to make command-line listing cleaner and more descriptive.

Icons

• --icons=always: Render Nerd Font filetype icons in output.
• --icons=auto: Detects if the terminal supports icons before printing.
• --icons=never: Disable icons.

NOTE

Nerd Fonts must be installed and configured in your terminal emulator for icons to display correctly.

Color Scales

Highlight file attributes (such as sizes or age) with distinct color gradients to spot large/old files instantly.

• --color-scale=all: Scale colors for all supporting fields.
• --color-scale=age: Highlight newer vs. older files.
• --color-scale=size: Highlight larger files with brighter colors.
• --color-scale-mode=gradient: Uses smooth color transitions (default).
• --color-scale-mode=fixed: Uses distinct block colors.

# Color scale based on file size
eza -lh --color-scale=size

# Interactive Hyperlinks (clickable file paths in compatible terminals)
eza -l --hyperlink

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7. Advanced Recursion & Tree Layouts

Generate directory maps with control over depth and structure.

# View directory tree up to 3 levels deep
eza --tree --level=3

# Combine tree view with detailed long output and headers
eza --tree -l -h --level=2

# Use glob pattern to exclude node_modules or .git from trees
eza --tree -I "node_modules|.git"